Mission Escape Games’ The Darkest Hour (escape room review)

It’s hard to believe that we’ve nearly done well over 60 different escape rooms. We’ve only been covering them for a little over a year now and it seems more and more are popping up. That’s why we are happy to report that we were invited back to Mission Escape Games for a second round. Earlier this year, they wowed us with their “Hydeout” room, so obviously, we were really eager to see what they were working on with the newest room, “The Darkest Hour.” It was hard not to have high expectations for a followup to Hydeout, and I was happy that Mission Escape Games delivered.

“The Darkest Hour” is a horror-based escape room where you and your friends have been kidnapped by a psycho killer. Together you must work together and find a way out before the killer returns. We’ve done horror escape rooms with this exact same premise before. I may not have noticed it at the time, but it seems that the basic premise is starting to become the norm. That being said, I am happy to say that the room was completely different from anything else I’ve experienced.

While not giving anything away, Mission Escape’s Darkest Hour was so well done that at one point made one of our team members fell to the floor due to being frightened. It seems like most horror escape rooms have to have a live actor in order to elicit scares, yet Darkest Hour proves that great room design and some well-timed contraption can still be quite effective. There were a few more times where the room was able to scare us in ways we did not see coming. While the room can be very heavy on the tech, it knows how to keep all the gadgets and gizmos hidden.

There are other escape rooms that have too much tech to the point where it’s out in the open and ruins the illusion. With Mission Escape’s The Darkest Hour, it does a great job of not only keeping this element well hidden, but it uses it to service the story and the narrative.

I can’t recommend this room enough. If you’re in the Orange County area, do yourself a favor and check out this room. Better yet, check out Hydeout as well. For more information on Darkest Hour and Hydeout, visit MissionEscapeGames.com